The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made

Written by Patricia O'Toole

Narrated by Fred Sanders

Acclaimed author Patricia O’Toole’s “superb” (The New York Times) account of Woodrow Wilson, one of the most high-minded, consequential, and controversial US presidents. A “gripping” (USA TODAY) biography, The Moralist is “an essential contribution to presidential history” (Booklist, starred review).

“In graceful prose and deep scholarship, Patricia O’Toole casts new light on the presidency of Woodrow Wilson” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis). The Moralist shows how Wilson was a progressive who enjoyed unprecedented success in leveling the economic playing field, but he was behind the times on racial equality and women’s suffrage. As a Southern boy during the Civil War, he knew the ravages of war, and as president he refused to lead the country into World War I until he was convinced that Germany posed a direct threat to the United States. Once committed, he was an admirable commander-in-chief, yet he also presided over the harshest suppression of political dissent in American history.

After the war Wilson became the world’s most ardent champion of liberal internationalism—a democratic new world order committed to peace, collective security, and free trade. With Wilson’s leadership, the governments at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 founded the League of Nations, a federation of the world’s democracies. The creation of the League, Wilson’s last great triumph, was quickly followed by two crushing blows: a paralyzing stroke and the rejection of the treaty that would have allowed the United States to join the League. Ultimately, Wilson’s liberal internationalism was revived by Franklin D. Roosevelt and it has shaped American foreign relations—for better and worse—ever since.

A cautionary tale about the perils of moral vanity and American overreach in foreign affairs, The Moralist “does full justice to Wilson’s complexities” (The Wall Street Journal).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Apr 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781508259275

Patricia O'Toole

Patricia O’Toole is the author of five books, including The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made, When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House, and The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams and His Friends, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A former professor in the School of the Arts at Columbia University and a fellow of the Society of American Historians, she lives in Camden, Maine.

Reviews for The Moralist

[4bonasa · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Readable biography of Wilson, with a strong emphasis on WWI and The League of Nations. His legislative accomplishments were given short shrift. However, his life prior to his ascendancy to the Presidency was well covered and made the book worth reading. Even without any discussion of his controversial ideas on government and governance. Wilson life and authorship is too large for a single volume. Ms. O’Toole did well with what she choose to discuss.